Election year U.S. map and recycled dictionary page card

I remember being at an election part for Obama's first term and the hostess had a map on a board that was colored in every time a state was announced. This U.S. die cut card is inspired by election year maps.

For the background I used a page from an old dictionary and I chose the page that had California on it. To embellish the page I stenciled a field of stars with a blue ink pad and a Judikins field of stars stencil.

I used the Sizzix United States die to cut out both the outline of America and the individual California state.

Happy Election Year!

Glow in the Dark secret inspiration word art

I am a big fan of little secret things in art, hidden messages, images, etc. I thought it might be fun to paint a secret message on two stenciled panels.  During the day they look like pretty decorative stenciled art and at night they glow with the inspirational word "DO".

I started out with some recycled square pieces of wood.
I painted them with two different shades of FolkArt paint- Cascade and Dutch Aqua.

When they were dry I taped the Floral Wallpaper and Nouveau Damask stencils onto the blocks and stenciled them using Waverly Chalk paint in plaster color.

 When the decorative stencil paint was dry I then laid the Waverly letter stencil over the decorative stencil (THIS IS IMPORTANT NOT TO REMOVE THE UNDER STENCIL!) and painted the letter with the glow in the dark finish paint. It doesn't show during the day but when the lights go out they show up.

How to airbrush solar lights

Over at Craft Gossip I have posted a fun and easy tutorial on how to airbrush plastic cups in a rainbow and add die cut words to make a colorful solar light sign.

How to make red, white and blue 4th of July pom poms to top of a bottle of party wine

I love pompoms and dressing up a bottle of wine with a big one when when heading out to a party makes a fun decoration to give to a hostess. This red, white and blue giant pom pom will be fun to bring to a 4th of July picnic.

Gather up red, white and blue yarn along with your pompom maker and a sharp pair of scissors and plate.

This pom pom will consist of 2 pompoms sewn together.  For the first side of the pom pom wrap with red primarily and then a bunch more white. As much as you can get on your pompom maker.

Trim off the pompom maker and set aside.

Make the second one with a base of blue and again cover it with white wraps.

 Stitch the two pom pom halves together with the white section together.

Hold the pom pom over the plate and trim the pom pom round.

Tie the pom pom on a bottle of wine.

50 Small Paintings-Done!

My New Year's resolution for 2015 was to do the 50 small paintings in the book Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 Small Paintings. It took me a bit longer to finish them all and even a bit longer to photograph them and write this post. But I should also add I built the shelves along the way to display them too!

 And me being me I did them all on recycled plywood I had leftover from a construction project.

I cut and sanded the plywood down to 5 inch squares.

Then I primed all the wood squares to get them ready to do each painting.

This was the first painting. Boy, that seems like forever-ago!

I can't tell you how fun this was to do! The directions are excellent and each painting is such a pleasure to paint.

I would end up working on several at a time as you need to allow the paint to dry in some cases so it's fun to start the next and jump back and forth. I highly recommend this book and this process. As you can see the collection looks great and you learn so much. I have already started to use the techniques I learned by painting these pieces in new original paintings.